In the early summer of 2010, Errol D. Toulon, a Monroe College professor and retired Correction Academy excutive officer, made available to this website a copy of that issue. [See image of Page 1 at right.] Toulon also had been a first vice president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association. From that issue copy, the New York Correction History Society webmaster has created this four-page web presentation of extracted images and texts, one web page for each of the issue's four printed pages. Near the bottom of each of the presentation's four web pages is a descriptive list of links to all its pages. COBA President Leo C. Zeferetti has urged that a mandatory death sentence be given anyone who is convicted of killing a Correction Officer or any other Correc- tion Department employee trying to perform his duty. Zeferetti said such a penalty is "essential" because "it will serve as a deterrent to those inmates who otherwise would have nothing to lose by murdering a Correction Officer.” He made his plea before a meeting of the Assembly Codes Committee in Albany. "It is well to remember that Correction Officers are unarmed when they are on the job: no gun, no nightstick, no weapon of any sort. "We bring to the job nothing more than our mouth, hands, eyes, pen and pencil, and whistle. "As a result, we are virtually sitting ducks for any group of inmates that wants to overpower us, and, God forbid, kill us. "Each officer supervises from any number up to 200 inmates. "He freely mingles among them and exercises control only through leadership and persuasion. "He has no guarantee that his efforts will always meet with success. "If he fails, he is no match for inmates who are intent on taking him captive. "The most recent examples are the riots at the Tombs and the other city institutions, and at Attica. "Inmates overpowered the officers, took hostages, and assumed control of the prisons. "Fortunately, no one was killed in here in the city prisons. Our up-state officers were not so fortunate. "In today's climate of hostility and militancy, aggravated by serious problems of overcrowding, a riot can break out in our institutions at any time. "If one occurs, it is more than likely that hostages will be taken. And if hostages are taken, the murder of a Correction Officer or other correction employees becomes a real and frightening possibility. . . . . An inmate, knowing that if he kills an offcier he faces death, is less likely to commit the act. On the other hand, if the death penalty is . . . proscribed, a long-term prisoner has nothing to lose if he resorts to murder. An additional sentence for the act of murder is no deterrent. "He will be behind bars in any event for the rest of his life or until he is an old man.The same reasoning is true of a prisoner serving a relatively short term. "He is less likely to resort to murder if he knows he must sacrifice his own life. “We are looking for an insurance policy. No one on the face of the earth can write one that is worth anything. But we are looking for a measure of protection that will reduce the risks that are an integral part of our job.
WEBMASTER NOTES: The newsletter's printed table showed a 15-year veteran C.O. receiving a 6-day Holiday Rate 66 cents fewer than what a 10-year veteran C.O. was shown receiving in that category. That anomaly may have been the result of a typographical error. But that is what the printed newsletter showed and thus is reproduced above. . . .
Correction Officer Charles Jacob, who appears in the flags photo on this page, was COBA's sgt.-at-arms in 1973 (see newsletter staff listing bottom of next page). He also appears in another photo elsewhere on this website. That one relates to 1978 ceremonies recalling the 1975 murder of C.O. George Motchan by an escaping inmate.
Despite having been sentenced to death under the kind of capital punishment law advocated in the article appearing above, the convicted killer has not been executed. As a result of court rulings in the case, the 1974 law mandating a death sentence for the deliberate slaying of a peace officer was invalidated. Motchan's convicted murderer, Joseph James, was removed on Dec. 10, 1977, from death row in Greenhaven State Prison, Dutchess County, the last capital sentence inmate to occupy any of its 13 cells. He remains in prison and periodically comes up for possible parole that so far has been denied him.
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